Wednesday, 31 August 2011

The headline above, from "IceNews, should really read "Politician sorry for telling the truth".
The self-righteous "professor and Islam researcher", Anne Roald, who does the telling off -- like a strict school ma'am -- says: "... the idea that violence and Islam are linked indicates a distinct 'lack of history'".
She should perhaps say, rather more truthfully, that it indicates "he has not been sufficiently brainwashed".
Or, to turn it around "the idea that violence and Islam are not linked indicates a severe lack of either intelligence/common sense, or honesty".
Still, the apologiser in question, Trond Roed, does seem to have gone rather over the edge, in calling for "psychological de-programming". Hmmm...
For a start, Trond, it would simply take too long!
I suspect -- I acknowledge, with no evidence -- that Roed apologised for the 7-year old letter because he didn't want to be smeared as a mass-murder enabler, in the wake of the criticisms being heaped on critics of Islam, in the wake of Breivik's murder spree. Lefties are taking the opportunity of shutting up all criticism they can.

Tuesday, 30 August 2011

Two of the talking points used by apologists and supporters of Sharia law are:

One: That Sharia is not really all that different from western or US law, so nothing to worry about.

Two: In an case, there's no movement to have it implemented in the west.

So: nothing to worry about. You can go back to sleep. That media darling, the "moderate" imam Faisal Rauf, sticks mainly to the first talking point: in the video below he says that Sharia is just like the US Constitution -- at least 90% of it is... I set out here just how little like the customs of the west Sharia is ("The Threat of Sharia").On the second point, though, he's more of a "let's-have-a-little-bit-of-Sharia" kind of guy. Let's implement it, but just a bit, mind.That's the line he ran in his interview a few days ago in Scotland, which is reported here. Note that none -- as in 0% -- of the commenters are having a bar of his line (read them, they're good). His line is:

An essential element of this interweaving of cultures, he [Rauf] says, will have to be the incorporation of Sharia law into the legal systems of Europe and the US. In this, he is in agreement with the Archbishop of Canterbury who said that the adoption of some aspects of Sharia law “seems to be unavoidable”.

Rauf points out that “the only truly clashing area is the penal code, and no Muslim has the intention of introducing that to America. The penal code is the area that people in the Western world are worried about – but these are things that aren’t even observed today in most of the Muslim world. Apart from the Taliban and a few places like that, where do you see this happening?”.

Note that this is the guy that has previously -- in relation to the Ground Zero Mosque of which he was the original proponent -- that there was no move to have Sharia in the US. But here he is openly and brazenly pushing for it. He says that "the only truly clashing area is the penal code" which need not be implemented. But you can't have a "bit" of Sharia any more than you can be a "bit" pregnant. As for his ludicrous claim "where to you see this happening?", well try, just for starters: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, southern Nigeria, increasingly in parts of Malaysia and Indonesia, even in the Maldives. His own duplicity -- in proposing we can pick and choose which bits of Sharia to take -- is revealed by the statement in his earlier book, Islam, a Sacred Law, where he says:

And since a Shari'ah is understood as a law with God at its center, it is not possible in principle to limit the Shari'ah to some aspects of human life and leave out others.

And finally to sum it all up, the wonderful Michael Cohen (h/t bcf). Coren is knowledgeable, succinct and eloquent:

Update: a "little bit of Sharia", globally, with the forthcoming vote to ban the criticism of Islam.... (any criticism will be "defamation", you wait and see)...

.... The Lobby then used Durban II, held in 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland, to propose a declaration to impose Islamic censorship on the West by prohibiting the defamation of Islam. In Durban III, to be held at the UN on the 10th anniversary of Durban I, the Muslim cabal now seeks to achieve its real goal—a UN General Assembly (UNGA) vote to approve the two earlier declarations.

"Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious." [Ayatollah Khomeini, 1979] **

Better get to Egypt pronto if you want to see the Pyramids, kiss the Sphinx, swim the Sharm Al-Sheikh and want to have a beer while you do it. "There is no fun in Islam", as the good Ayatollah said above, and these guys in Egypt are going to prove it...

Sheikh 'Adel Shehato, a senior official in Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ)...described the nature of the Islamic state to be established in Egypt: there would be no trade or cultural ties with non-Muslims; tourist sites at the pyramids, the Sphinx, and Sharm Al-Sheikh would be shut down "because the tourists come [there] to drink alcohol and fornicate," and all tourists wishing to visit Egypt would be required to comply with the conditions and laws of Islam; all art, painting, singing, dancing, and sculpture would be forbidden, and all culture would be purely Islamic.

A rising leader in the radical Islamic movement in Egypt that has become a major political player since the demise of Hosni Mubarak's regime says Christian churches may need to be blown up and Christians exterminated to allow the advance of Islamic law, or Shariah.

Egyptian Islamic Jihad is an affiliate of al-Qaeda, itself an outgrowth of the Muslim Brotherhood. So, to the extent that the Brotherhood increases influence in Egypt, to that extent one might expect the increase in influence of the radical Islamists such as Sheikh Shehato and the EIJ.

Note, by the way, that the first report above is a translation of Arabic sources by the Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI). It is translations of MEMRI that the folks who brought you "Fear, Inc" say is "Islamophobic": that it, that it is bigoted simply to translate into English the statements of important Middle East leaders are saying. What rot!

Postscript: some readers have objected that the likes of Sheikh Shehato are members of the extreme Egyptian Islamic Jihad and don't represent the majority of Egyptians. That's undoubtedly true, though it's also true that a remarkable number (upwards of 80%) of Egyptians are in favour of draconian ("extreme") Sharia provisions -- stoning for adultery, killing of apostates, and such -- as shown in a Pew Research Poll (here).
And it only takes a minority of activists to take power: 5-10% is enough, as the Bolsheviks, the Nazis and the Taliban have shown us.
Consider too the blowing up of the giant Bamyan Buddhist statues in Afghanistan. At the time many said "no way", no way would they dare to blow up glorious statues 2000 years old and part of their cultural legacy indeed the cultural history of mankind. But they did. Islamists are quite capable -- keen even -- to cut off their noses to spite the infidel. To get rid of pre-Islamic history, which they view as Jihiliya, the period of "ignorance" (oh the bitter irony!..)
So if yoy think, "no way", no way would they close down the Pyramids and Sphinx, well.... it might be wise to hedge your bets and get there soon....**[source: Meeting in Qom "Broadcast by radio Iran from Qom on 20 August 1979." quoted in Taheri, The Spirit of Allah (1985) p.259)

...on pp. 94-95, where the authors take the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) to task for translating and disseminating the words of international Muslims and Islamists. Such selective outrage, which blames “Islamophobia” on those who translate and publicize what Islamists themselves are saying (within a document that seeks to lay the blame for initiating a decade of Islamic skepticism at the feet of right-wing Westerners), is not only utterly useless in terms of furthering our national discussion of these important issues, but only further widens the divide between the involved parties. [my emphasis]

Which brings me back to the main problem with Fear, Inc. That the "radical right-wing Islamophobes" that it fingers are only quoting Islamic sources on the issues of (1) Islamic supremacism and (2) the spread of Sharia. The report's attack on these people is classic case of attacking the messenger.

[Note: mind you, I don't give the critics of Islam a completely free pass. They're a disparate lot, sometimes tetchy, sometimes overwrought and sometimes, no doubt, wrong. But I don't question their motives as sinister, right-wing, racist or bigoted. I believe that most if not all are genuinely concerned about the threat of Islam (or radical Islam, if you will), to the west and its freedoms of speech of conscience and the rights of women and minorities. There are many bloggers who blog for the interest and concern, for not a dime in return; they do it because they're genuinely worried -- and have a lot of evidence to substantiate the worry -- not because they've been "duped" by some vast right-wing conspiracy]

More from the above article:

This unwillingness to identify Islamists’ successful and unsuccessful terrorist attacks on western targets with the religion in whose name they are being carried out, combined with Islamic and left-wing groups’ first reactions to terrorist attacks being not a condemnation of the act but a warning to the greater public not to accuse or discriminate against Muslims, has greatly worsened the Perception Problem faced by western adherents to Islam. Efforts like this CAP report to place the blame for Islamic skepticism on a right-wing “Islamophobia network” while refraining almost entirely from mentioning the actions that ignited that skepticism in the first place only widen the chasm between the perception of Muslims and far more benign reality.

Sunday, 28 August 2011

Princess Salima Aga Khan, married to the
Aga Khan '69-95. I met her in London, 1974

There's been a bit of a kerfuffle recently in the blogosphere: about Rick Perry's cooperation with the Aga Khan in producing teaching materials on Islam for schools in Texas. The latest news on it is "The Perry/Aga Khan curriculum..."
This brought back the time I met the Aga Khan, in 1974 in Paris....
Here's the story:
I was in the UK for three years, 1972-74 just after my Uni degree at the Australian National University. It was the done thing in those days: after Uni head off the the "ol' country". In my case, I was heading off to Canada, via London. I thought I'd work on the oil rigs in Canada as I'd heard they earned thousands per week. Stopped off in London, had a beer at a pub in Hammermith, found it congenial and abandoned the idea of Canada.
By '74 I'd had a number of jobs: motor-bike deliveries, bookkeeping at a pie factory; selling "genuine" black velvet paintings door to door; selling encyclopedias door to door; selling carpets from a Pakistani shop in Knightesbridge. And, the best of all: a butler's valet at Glenfiddich lodge in Dufftown Scotland for the grouse shooting season of '74. I earned something like 26 quid a week, full board and tips. The tips were great, as I was also the driver, picking up the guests of the host down at Aberdeen Airport, and the trip always netted a tenner or so.

A new report by the Center for American Progress, titled “Fear, Inc” aims to “shine a light” on the “Islamophobic network” in the United States. The thesis of the report is that the criticism of Islam by a core of five “Islamophobia misinformation experts” spreads unfounded fear and misinformation about Islam; that they are funded by a small group of mainly Jewish organisations; and that they have an agenda to promote right wing political parties.

The unwritten subtext is that if you see yourself as member of the Left: beware! Do not dare to criticise Islam, for that’s “radical right wing” stuff, and puts you beyond the pale of civilized discourse.

The report itself is full of misinformation: either by commission or omission. One of those specifically attacked, Robert Spencer, has ably defended himself with a rebuttal here.

In this post, I just want to cover two areas:

Islamic Supremacism

The threat of Sharia.

In the view of the authors of “Fear, Inc”, in both these areas the five “Islamophobic misinformation experts” are spreading lies and disinformation.

Here are some of the report’s comments on these areas:

[p2]: manufacture and exaggerate threats of “creeping Sharia,” Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran.

[p23]: highly inaccurate or purposively deceptive material

[p27]: grossly mischaracterize the dangers of Sharia law in our country

… messages polluting our national discourse

….deeply mistaken portrayal of Islam… as an inherently violent ideology that seeks domination over the United States and all non-Muslims

…inaccurate and perverse view of Islam as “the only religion in the world that has a developed doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates violence against unbelievers and mandates that Muslims must wage war in order to establish the hegemony of the Islamic social order all over the world.”

… define Sharia as a “totalitarian ideology” and “legal-political-military doctrine” committed to destroying Western civilization.

P28: intentionally misdefining Sharia itself as the problem

These criticisms are ad hominem. Nowhere that I could see does the report address the issues and try to refute this allegedly "highly inaccurate" material. It's simply stated that they're wrong, "inaccurate", "perverse", whatever, with no counter argument. Ipse dixit.What we're supposed to think, in reaction to this ipse dixitism: What could these five “misinformers” be thinking?

Well, as they say themselves: they are merely reporting what Islamic clerics and Islamic texts [*] say.

Islam as a supremacist religion

There are many references to Islam’s view of itself as the religion to be dominant in the world. They come from Muslims and they come from Islamic texts.

I take here just one example, because it is (1) very authoritative and (2) very clear. The author is Abul a’la Maududi. Maududi is a revered Islamic scholar, a “major 20th Century Islamic thinker". He was the first recepient of the King Faisal International Prize for his services to Islam.

But the truth is that Islam is not the name of a ‘Religion’, nor is ‘Muslim’ the title of a ‘Nation’. In reality Islam is a revolutionary ideology and programme which seeks to alter the social order of the whole world and rebuild it in conformity with its own tenets and ideals. ‘Muslim’ is the title of that International Revolutionary Party organized by Islam to carry into effect its revolutionary programme. And ‘Jihād’ refers to that revolutionary struggle and utmost exertion which the Islamic Party brings into play to achieve this objective. [Jihad in Islam, A'la Maududi, Holy Koran Publishing House, Beirut, 1979, p5]

On the Nation State:

Islam has no vested interest in promoting the cause of this or that Nation. The hegemony of this or that State on the face of this earth is irrelevant to Islam. [ibid p6]

Living in peace with other nations and religions?

Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it. [ibid p7]

Now, I ask:

Is there anything unclear in this? No. It is crystal clear.

Is there anything out of date in this? No, it is core doctrine and regularly repeated by Islamic scholars and politicians, up to heads of State (eg: Ahmandinejad)

Is there anything in this which should give us pause? Yes, of course there is. Not to do so is irresponsible.

Are the five “misinformation experts” misrepresenting these words? No, they are simply reporting them.

Is the “Fear, Inc” document misrepresenting these words? Yes, because they ignore them. They would have their readers know nothing about them: too dangerous to their thesis that it’s all a misinformed radical right plot.

The threat of Sharia

[p3]: Gingrich went on to claim that “Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world.”

Your reaction to the above statement is supposed to be “Oh my god, how could Gingrich say such a thing?! What a fool! What an ignoramus! He’s crazy!”

In fact, if you know anything at all about Sharia – and it’s easy enough to, the classic manual of Islamic law is available at Amazon – then you know that he’s absolutely right.

In the Classic Manual of Islamic Jurisprudence (Umdate al-Salik) we have:

stoning for adultery (o12.2);

execution of apostates (f1.3);

penalty for killing a woman only half that of killing a man (o4.9);

no penalty for killing one’s child (o1.2);

no indemnity for a Muslim killing a non-Muslim (o1.2(4));

amputation of limbs for theft (o14);

caning of women for disobedience (m10.12)

killing of homosexuals (p17.3)

clitorodectomy (e4.3)

supremacism of Islam (w4.1(2))

Knowing of these, knowing that they are in the religious law, in Sharia, knowing moreover that these punishments are indeed implemented in countries that practice Sharia, are we nonetheless supposed to think that Sharia is somehow consistent with – not “abhorrent” to – the western world?

Or are we simply to ignore them? They are written down in black and white. They are practiced in Sharia states like Iran, Saudi and Pakistan. Are we simply to ignore the written word, to ignore the actual practice? Should we simply ignore these and choose to believe that Sharia means “justice, fairness and mercy”, because the authors of “Fear, Inc” tell us so? [p28].

Now, I ask:

Who is doing the “misinforming” here?

Is it the people pointing to the clear and unambiguous prescriptions of Sharia?

Or is it those, the authors of this paper, who say it is sweetness and light and mention not even a single one of Sharia’s many problematic areas?

What of the claim that it’s only the “radical right” that’s concerned about Sharia? It certainly is the case, in my observation, that Republicans in the US, conservative parties in other countries, are the ones most concerned about Islam. But they are not the only ones and the list of people “of the left”, or centre, or independent, include: Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, Maryam Namazie, Rooshanjie Ejaz, Ayyan Hirsi Ali. To suggest that one is only critical of Islam if one is beholden to a bigoted right-wing agenda is a calumny.

There are many people concerned about Islam, and not because they are in “Fear”. But because they have some common sense and can read and see for themselves what Sharia and a supremacist religion can do to a country.

Better forewarned than too late.

[*]: Koran 9.5: Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.

Saturday, 27 August 2011

You voted for Obama maybe, cause you hoped, you wanted change; but he's been a "disappointment"; you want him to be, well, just "a little bit stronger". But who's on the other side? Perry believes the earth was created 4000-odd years ago (I don't know the exact date; but does it matter??). And Mormon beliefs of Huntsman and the Mittney are equally bizarre. How could you vote for president someone who accepts such zany, delusional and quite clearly historically wrong, beliefs?
For me as a member of the counter-jihad set, the biggest disappointment of Obama was his attitude to Islam. I'd thought before he was elected that he was smart and would have figured out Islam, the aspects of it that are a threat to tolerant western ideals (and those threats are clear and manifold); that the only reason he didn't talk about it in the campaign was that he didn't need to, so why trespass on an area that could be filled with briars and nettles. Better keep the powder dry (to mix the metaphors).
But it turns out that he didn't know anything about Islam. The fact that he'd spent some time as a Muslim in his youth is irrelevant. I was Confirmed in the Church of England when I was ten. Doesn't mean I knew anything about it. I've been an atheist since, and only in adult atheism do I feel I know anything about Christianity. For Obama, it was clear that what he learnt in adulthood was nothing about Islam, and something about Christianity: enough, in any case, to seem a credible simulacrum of a Christian, something he knew he had to be to achieve his aim of president-hood.
Any understanding that he had about Islam was of the common-garden "common wisdom" variety; the "religion of peace" variety; the "it contributed to science in its golden age" variety; the "in Andalusia Islam was tolerant of Jews and Christians" variety; and all that sort of bunkum. Except that he didn't -- still doesn't -- see it as bunkum, for he was too busy on other matters; too busy being a politician, aiming for the White House.
So while what he's said and done on Islam is very Islam-friendly, it's not because he's a Muslim, but because he believes the common wisdom (aka the common ignorance). He's not a Muslim, in other words, he just acts like one. Or, he's not a Muslim, he just gives Islam the free pass, the lack of inspection and investigation and criticism that the left seems to think it deserves.
The other issue that riles is the widening income and wealth gap in the US. This becomes an issue of national security when it widens, for that causes social problems, or worse. A secure commonwealth is one in which all have some stake in the state, some stake in its wealth, in which fairness is a strong driving force (in Australia we call it the "fair go" and it's a strong part of the culture and what makes Australia great). All that has eroded, in the US, in the last 30 years or so. The figures are clear, and for Republicans simply to ignore them is abhorrent.Says Timothy Egan:

He should make Republicans defend the politics of grotesque economic inequality.

But can he? Will he? It sure doesn't look like he will. He has, says Egan, "... no skip in his step, no lift in his voice." He's a lame duck before even the duck season is near.
And if you can't vote for him -- One, because his view of Islam is too rosy hewed and Two, because he's doing nothing to rectify major wealth dislocations -- who can you vote for? A Perry who doesn't believe in evolution? Who wants to remove rights from gays and pregnant women? Who wants to abolish income tax? Make abortion illegal? (see his book).
It's a toughie... Glad I'm not American in 2012 having to make that choice, a non-choice.

Friday, 26 August 2011

Your BBC World Service story on the Palestinian football team was a piece of propaganda.

One interviewee: Palestinian murders at the Munich Olympics were just the way they had to do it then, to gain attention.

Another interviewee: There was hope of a Palestinian state back in 2000 when it was an "enticement" from Israel [Note not a good faith offer in the negotiations, but an "enticement" with it's connotation of suspicion], but that "didn't quite happen" because of the intifada. Like the intifada just happened, an act of God, or whatever. In fact what happened was that the Israelis offered everything (well, 97+%) of what the a Palestinians wanted. In response: not acceptance of the offer, or even a counter-offer, but Yasser Arafat's Al-Aqsa intifada, murderous and without warning.

What the Palestinians - or at least their leadership - want is not two states living side by side in peace. They want one State, achieved by the destruction and ethnic cleansing (aka murder) of Jews on that land. That is what they say; and their actions are consistent with that aim.

If your interviewers and their interlocutors would at least admit that - that "peace" on Palestinian terms means the destruction of Israel - then at least their views, horrid as they are, would have the virtue of honesty. As they are, they are merely duplicitous, and horridly so.

My letter to New York Times (aka International Herald Tribune) was here. Others made similar points, and it's great to see some sanity in the letters, in not always in the columnists, Roger Cohen in particular. Though the last of the letters below is from the American Jews for a Just Peace and as such an apologia for the BS of BDS. The BDS movement is ugly and misguided. Myers notes the "active involvement of Jews" in the movement; but that says nothing about its logic except speaking to their own misguidedness...

To the Editor:
Re “Jews in a Whisper” (column, Aug. 21):
Roger Cohen’s acute depiction of the perpetuation of British anti-Semitism recalls the description of it in “Trials of the Diaspora,” Anthony Julius’s epic study of the topic.
“It is not Jew-hatred that we must write of,” Mr. Julius concludes, “but Jew-distrust ... it is a story of snub and insult, sly whisper and innuendo, deceit and self-deception.”
But is there not more than a touch of self-deception in Mr. Cohen’s insistence that “the task” — apparently, the only task — of diaspora Jews is to condemn the “colonization of Palestinians in the West Bank”?
Even if one shares, as I do, Mr. Cohen’s concerns about the settlements, I would have thought that if diaspora Jews or others were being assigned tasks vis-à-vis Israel, a prime one would be to respond to the torrent of calumny, one-sided and often false, that is directed at that nation on the basis of supposed standards that are applied to no other nation.
FLOYD ABRAMS
New York, Aug. 21, 2011The writer, a First Amendment lawyer, has represented The New York Times.To the Editor:
When Roger Cohen suggests that the lesson Jews should take from British class consciousness and anti-Semitism is for Israel to end the “colonization” of the West Bank, he mimics the bigotry he is trying to expose. Does Mr. Cohen believe that the British will stop whispering when the Israelis stop building settlements?
Anti-Semitism, like other forms of bigotry, is based not on what people do, but on who they are. To suggest otherwise is to blame the victim and ignore history.
KATHERINE L. GURVEY
Lincolnshire, Ill., Aug. 21, 2011The writer is communications director of Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs, a bipartisan political action committee dedicated to, among others, the United States-Israel relationship.To the Editor:
Roger Cohen says Jews should know better: “The lesson is clear: Jews, with their history, cannot become the systematic oppressors of another people.” His reference to the plight of the Palestinians is offensive: blaming Israel. He should know better!
In 1993, Israel gave the Palestinians a chance to have their own country with the Oslo Accords. The Palestinians responded with suicide bombings and terror. Israel followed with offers in 2000 and 2008. Palestinians walked away without a counteroffer.
Since Israel won the West Bank from Jordan, the Palestinians’ life expectancy has increased, their infant mortality has been reduced, and their economy has prospered. If any fingers need to be pointed, they should be at the Palestinian leadership.
MICHAEL BERENHAUS
Potomac, Md., Aug. 21, 2011To the Editor:
While I applaud Roger Cohen’s call for diaspora Jews to “be vociferous in their insistence that continued colonization of Palestinians in the West Bank” must end, I take issue with his opposition to “those who, ignoring sinister historical echoes, propose ostracizing Israeli academics and embrace an anti-Zionism that flirts with anti-Semitism.” The movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions as a means to press Israel to respect human rights and international law is very specific in not targeting individual Israeli academics, but rather institutions that collaborate with the Israeli colonial enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The conflation of criticism of Israel, or Zionism, with anti-Semitism is the first refuge of the defenders of Israel right or wrong, and is belied by the active involvement of Jews in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement.
ALAN MEYERS
Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 21, 2011The writer is a member of the steering committee of American Jews for a Just Peace, Boston.

A version of this letter appeared in print on August 23, 2011, on page A24 of the New York edition with the headline: On Anti-Semitism and the Mideast.

Thursday, 25 August 2011

Half-listening the BBC world service radio, here in Hong Kong, when I thought I heard Tony Benn, the notorious leftie, come on to be interviewed. Ears on, for you can always count on some delicious silliness from Tone, the lovely ol' "boiled rabbit of the Left" (Orwell, My Country Right or Left, 1946). But it wasn't Tone; it was a sound-alike -- you know the "c"s and "t"s pronounced as "sh", as in "feroshus", or "descrucshun", which always strike me as being particularly ol-time English Public School -- a sound-alike then, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, ex UK Ambassador to the UN, Special Rep in Iraq and now businessman with oil interests in Iraq.
What caught my ear was his tossed-off line that we went into the Iraq war for "selfish" reasons. "Selfish", I thought. Huh? You could have been for or agin the war. But surely, even if against it, you wouldn't jump at the word "selfish".
That led me to Google him and came across the fascinating article of January 13th 2009, by Melanie Phillips when she was still with the Speccie, in which Sir Jeremy relieved himself of views right out of the leftist playbook that I'd just been reading about in the excellent "United in Hate".
I leave it to Mel, she says it best:

I was travelling yesterday, and so only caught up very late with the comments made on BBC Radio Four’sToday programme by the former UK ambassador to the UN and now head of the prestigious Ditchley Foundation, SirJeremyGreenstock. Astoundingly, this ornament of the British Great and the Good made a propaganda pitch for Hamas. The claims he made were so patently ludicrous it is hard to believe that any western person, let alone a former senior diplomat, could make them.

From briarpatch magazine. For Kassamali this
is a positive picture; it's supposed to entice
us to embrace our extinction

I was rereading parts of Jamie Glazov's excellent "United in Hate" -- subtitled "The Left's Romance With Tyranny and Terror". This being something of a fascination of mine and no doubt many others of my era -- the sixties -- when we were all hippies, man, and leftie of course. Support for miserable communist dictatorships like China, Cuba, the Soviet Union was de rigueur.
But some of that era, like David Horowitz, went from hard left to a rather more realistic conservatism.
And those that remain hard left: why is it that they support militant Islam, that stands for everything they're supposed to hate? The radical Islamist is supremacist, misogynist, homophobic, anti-semitic, anti freedom of speech and conscience, yet many on the left are besotted. Why?
Jamie gives answers, for which you can read the book, or, if you want a short version, read the most-helpful reviews here.
Anyhooo, it got me thinking of an article I saw recently, I think courtesy bcf, by a radical left muslim feminist (if "muslim feminist" is not an oxymoron..), one Sumayya Kassamali in the briarpatch magazine, titled provocatively: "In defence of a Muslim takeover". Well no doubt of the agenda there. But just in case, it's subtitled: "Or, why we should welcome the extinction of the West". Wow.
Actually, Kassamali makes no case at all for why we should welcome the extinction of the West; well not unless you consider the hastily tossed off "civilizational diffusion", as a good enough reason to toss off the centuries of achievements of the west. She certainly does not address the issue of what would happen to people like her in an Islamic caliphate she envisages, that would take over the West. Or just how we would get on in the world that is not made up of "the logic of liberal democracy and free-market capitalism". Nasty things, those. Let's diffuse them. Let's replace them with vibrant, thriving economies like those in the Middle East. Right. (Check out the Arab Human Development Report to see just how well they're working)
She ends with this half-baked and muddled "thought":

We must, as [Edward] Said says, be respectful of uncoercive communities – even as we sometimes struggle in opposition to their voices – and yet, anarchic in our capacity to imagine. So open the borders, let the Muslims have babies, and let us see where a radical future lies.

We don't need to see "where the radical future lies". We already know it: the "future" is now. We see it most clearly in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. What is "uncoercive" about those societies is a mystery. Why Kassamali would promote them is a mystery. But how long the likes of an outspoken and independent, if ignorant, woman like Ksassmali, would last in that "radical future" is most certainly not a mystery: not long at all.

Letter to South China Morning Post
Michael Jenkins criticises the Pope and Catholic Church ("Church that cares a lot about money", Letters, August 24). They are "corrupt, immoral, unethical". And of course, there's "the history of the Inquisition".
Spaniards have demonstrated against the recent visit of the Pope to their country.
So what's going on here? An outbreak of "Cathophobia"? Or is it "Popeophobia"?
Of course not. The Pope and the Church are expected to take criticism on their collective chin. Why is it that only with Islam does justified criticism get dismissed as "Islamophobia", or "far-right xenophobia"?
Clearly there is some hypocrisy here.

Tuesday, 23 August 2011

"In a democratic society anybody should be allowed to protest, but I find it really distasteful that a Jewish business is being targeted in this way," Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes says. "If people are upset about the handling of the Middle East process then fine, but why don't they protest outside the Israeli embassy and direct their protest to the Israeli state rather than a Jewish business? If people do not like the policies of the Australian government, I wouldn't expect there to be a protest outside the RM Williams store."

Repeat after me: Israel is not an Apartheid state. This BDS campaign is just BS. Part of the effort to demonise, delegitimise and ultimately to destroy Israel. Or, as Peter Wertheim says better:

"The Israel-Palestinian conflict is a struggle between two nations, not a struggle for equality within one nation," the Executive Council of Australian Jewry's executive director Peter Wertheim says.

"Within Israel all citizens, including Jews, Arabs and Druze, have the same voting and legal rights . . . Jews and Arabs use the same public transport, eat at the same restaurants, shop at the same malls and play in the same sports teams.

"The BDS [Max Brenner] campaign in Australia is not really about economic pressure, it's about demonising and vilifying Israel."

Union leader Howes says: "If they [anti-Israeli protesters] are trying to equate the campaign against apartheid in South Africa with a campaign against a Jewish chocolate shop, they've got rocks in their head."

Monday, 22 August 2011

I've been meaning to post this video of a talk by Sam Harris for some time; just not sure who to tip the hat to, I think maybe BCF.
It's significant to me in that Harris is not one of your "usual suspects" who criticise Islam; one of those so often dismissed as being "far right". Sam Harris certainly is not that. And there are few enough on the Left who dare criticise Islam, that he's significant. And he does a fine job of slicing into its core problems:
"The Koran is a profoundly mediocre book" (so true), "anyone who says that Islam is a religion of peace is delusional" (ditto); "this book [the Koran] offers precious little rationale for living in a sane and pluralistic global civilisation" (ditto, a fortiori).
[LATER: Woops the link below no longer works (I wonder why??...). Try this one.

There's also a great and longer talk at the TED conference by Harris, a wonderful presentation on the nonsense of moral equivalence: "all religions are the same" and all that guff:

Letter to NYT:
Roger Cohen is at it again: excoriating Israel for being the "systematic oppressors of another people", while not laying even the lightest finger on the Palestinians. ("Jews in a Whisper", IHT, August 20).
Nary a whisper of the need for the Palestinian leadership to adhere to UN Resolution 242; nary a whisper of Hamas' genocidal Charter; nary a whisper that past offers of West Bank return have been met with murderous intifadas.
What evidence is there that unilateral handing over of the West Bank will result in anything other than yet more intifadas? None, except wishful thinking. More likely is that "Jews in a Whisper" will become "Jews in a Tumbrel".

Earlier I wrote that "Mosques in the US really DO promote hate ideology", noting that five studies, including one by a Muslim cleric and one by the New York police, provide evidence for that judgement.Andrew McCarthy reports that a previous imam of the New Jersey mosque -- one of the largest in the US -- "boasted of raising money at the mosque for Hamas". That's only not a problem if you think that Hamas is not a problem. But it's Hamas that has in its charter the call for jews to be killed "wherever they are", in short calling for genocide of jews.And, in J. Glazov's "United in Hate" (p147):

Pierre Rehov, the French filmmaker, who produced the documentary Suicide Killers, spend hours speaking with would-be martyrs in Israel jails and with their families. He notes how, in this culture, the dream of becoming a suicide bomber starts in the mosque, where the imams continually tell their congregations that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs and are oppressors of humanity in general and of Palestinians in particular.

All of which makes this report, sourced from the Hudson Institute, all the more disturbing:

Islamic mosques are being built more often in France than Roman Catholic churches, and there now are more practising Muslims in the country than practising Catholics.

Woopie do. There are now some 2,000 mosques in France, and growing at around 10% pa.

This can only not be disturbing if you believe, either: (a) that the reports and studies -- about extremism and hate taught at mosques -- are wrong or (b) that even if true, it doesn't matter anyway, since it's all part of the mosaic of cultural diversity; we have benefitted from immigration and their practices, their places of worship, before, and will again.

To which, one can only say, re (a) On what basis do you say the reports are wrong? They are numerous and consistent. And to (b) Studied Sharia law lately? Had a look at the culture that Islam, piously followed, does to a society, to its women, to its minorities, to its non-Muslims? Had a look at its core texts? Read the Koran? Read the Hadith? Read about Muhammad and his life of looting and pillage?You mean you can look at all that and still not be concerned? Heaven help you (and us!)...There is absolutely no evidence, or even any logic, for the belief that since immigration has been beneficial in the past, immigration of those with beliefs inimical to the west will be beneficial now or in future. Or for the belief that mosques are simply -- like churches or temples -- simply benign places of worship, for the "religion of peace". It simply ain't so.

You often hear defenders of the Netanyahu government say, in opposition to demands for a settlement freeze, “Settlements are not the issue. The issue is the Palestinian refusal to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.” The unspoken subtext behind this argument is that if only the Palestinians would accept the existence of Israel, the issue of the settlements could easily be resolved, with Israel retaining some and abandoning others. And it is certainly true that the Palestinians have never accepted the existence of Israel and have always found one pretext or another to avoid a peaceful resolution of the conflict, but even if the Palestinians would formally accept the Jewish state, it is far from clear that a compromise on the question of settlements is either possible or desirable.

Dr. Michal Rachel Suissa is a Jewish Amazigh (Berber) refugee from Morocco, working as an associate professor in medicinal chemistry at University College of Oslo... writes:

The responsibility for Jew-hatred in Norway lies with the “mind-designers” who recklessly use the media and their political platforms to distort reality and depict Jews as the world’s most dangerous people, in the words of former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland (now secretary general of the Council of Europe): “If there is something that is a threat to world peace, then it is the Israeli occupation.“ Such often-repeated statements are among the unquestionable sources of Jew-hatred in Norway.

The article helps one understand the growing anti-Israel -- up unto anti-semitic -- views of so many in the west, a growing number, but unaware of the historic realities, of the importance of Israel to the democratic west.

Sunday, 14 August 2011

In catch-up mode, letter to the South China Morning Post a week ago and run recently:Sirs,I’m all for renewable energy, but something jumped out at me in the report "Solar power trial reduces carbon footprint" (City, 8 July [* ]). According to the Housing Department, a single housing block can save up to 8,400 kg of carbon emissions a year — “the equivalent of planting of 350 trees.”

If we assume that it costs $10 to plant a tree (probably generous), it would cost just $HK3,500 to plant those trees, or less than $US 500. If our aim is to reduce carbon emissions, and not simply to grandstand with pilot renewables projects, then why not simply plant more trees? That would be many orders of magnitude cheaper and more efficient than this solar project. Less sexy, yes, but quicker and much, much cheaper.

In my inbox of articles and ripostes I missed: Roger Cohen, yet again -- yawn! -- putting the boot into Israel, in an article "A year of waste", which I confess I missed, but the tone of which one knows, both from Cohen's predilections and biases, and from the letter in riposte. [Update: here is
Cohen's article]
Cohen is part of that cohort in the New York Times and its international edition I get here in Hong Kong, the International Herald Tribune, which put the torch to Israel's feet, and never once mention the need for Palestinian leaderships to put up their side of the bargain: recognition of Israel and its guaranteed security.
So, good on Fiona Grady for this letter, "The only road to real peace":

Saturday, 13 August 2011

I write letters to the editor for two reasons: one, I hope that it will be published. Two, even if it is not published, I believe -- as editor mates of mine have told me is the case -- that the more people write in support of one particular view, the more likely they are to carry at least one representative letter to represent that view. You hope that yours may be the one they carry, but even if not, there's a letter there reflecting your view. And if you think letters are just a means for people to let off steam, well think again, for at least here in Hong Kong, we know that government officials do monitor letters to the South China Morning Post, and often reply in the letters section or with an Op-ed themselves. And we've often seen policy influenced as a result (the Super Prison campaign being one)
But even if a letter serves only to "let off steam", then so what? That's a valuable service in its own right. One recalls a putative and venerable "Major Montague Lyttleton-Threepwood (Ret)", or some such, hurrumphing that he's so incenced why, why.... "I'm so angry I'll write to the Times".
I wrote to the International Herald Tribune (the international edition of The New York Times) about their Roger Cohen piece in which he basically labelled any and all criticism of Islam as "racist".
The letter was a shorter version of this post.
They ran a letter on similar lines, I was pleased to see, from David Rawson. There must have been quite a few letters to them expressing similar views, in order for the Tribune even to have carried this one letter -- for the leanings of the NYT's editors would be more in line with Cohen's own: that Islam critics are nothing but horrid "Islamophobes". Kudos to them at least for running this letter. Reprint below the fold...

How do I know that when I see an article in the New York Times written by an Israeli/Palestinian duo it's going to be critical of Israel and touch not one whit on what the Palestinian leadership needs to do to attain peace? Well, first because it's the NYT and they miss no opportunity to lay into Israel.
The second is that any time there's Israel-Palestinian cooperation on writing about the country or "working for peace" -- the likes of Barenboim -- the outcome is the same: unsparing criticism of Israel; no call for any of the prerequisites for peace from the Palestinian leadership.
One of the clearest pre-requisites? In Resolution 242 of the United Nations in 1967 is the requirement that, in return for Israel's return of "territories" (not "the" territories, allowing for some flexibility on what is returned), there must be recognition of the Jewish state and guarantees of its security.
Israel has on several occasions since offered its half of this pact; no leadership on the Palestinian side has come near offering its side of the pact.
Two articles in the International Herald Tribune (the international edition of the New York Times) on the same day, both hyper-critical of Israel; and neither taking account of article 242, or even drawing Palestinian attention to it....

As a counter: "Wild Bill" on the invention of the "Palestinian". He's pretty earthy in his description, but it's correct history: as recorded in contemporaneous accounts from both sides: the Arab and Israeli and also the nascent UN at the time.

Prequel: James Carrol writes Israel's opportunity to stop a train wreckalong the same lines -- yawn! -- as the two pieces above: ie all the blame/responsibility on Israel, none on the Palestinians..... Which led to a sensible letter (which appears unsigned):

RE JAMES Carroll’s July 18 column “Israel’s opportunity to stop a train wreck’’: In the run-up to the Palestinian Authority’s planned September request of the United Nations to make Palestine a recognized state, Israel is right to be concerned and make moves to protect itself. That is because a Palestinian state in the middle of Israel would spell destruction for the Jewish nation and democracy in the Middle East.

Carroll calls for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Knesset to view this as a chance for “coexistence,’’ but apparently fails to take into account the history of the past six decades. Since 1937 the Palestinians have rejected more than 30 opportunities for statehood. Why? Because all of these opportunities have included the existence of the state of Israel, anathema to the Palestinian cause. How many more offers does Israel have to make? Or will only the elimination of a Jewish presence from the Middle East satisfy Israel’s critics?

Some of us have long complained about the cult of “balance,” the insistence on portraying both parties as equally wrong and equally at fault on any issue, never mind the facts. I joked long ago that if one party declared that the earth was flat, the headlines would read “Views Differ on Shape of Planet.”

Krugman is speaking about the debate over the deficit, and I think he's right on that one: the fault is more with the Reps than the Dems.
This "cult of centrism" exists everywhere, particularly amongst the left-wing fishies amongst whom Krugman swims. It is also known as "cultural equivalence".
In the case of religion, it takes the form of "all religions are basically the same", ie, equally bad, or equally violent, or equally good, or worshipping equally the one god. Each is a manifestation like each other.
But that's no more true of religions than it is of political parties. There are Nationalists; and there are Socialists. Then there are the National Socialists. Who would claim all these are the same?

Islam is unique in many ways:

It is the only religion in which the core document -- the Koran -- is the "uncreated" (in the sense that Man did not create it), inviolate and uncorrectable, Word of God.

It is the only on in which its prophet is a warlord.

It is the only one without the golden rule -- do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

It is the only one with a documented political system central to its tenets (Sharia).

What is the religious equivalent to Krugman's "Views Differ on Shape of Planet"? It is leaders in Islam quoting their inviolate texts to call for Islam to "Rule the world", for their votaries in the west to call for "Behead those who insult the prophet", and the headline reads: "Islam: the Religion of Peace and Tolerance".

Friday, 12 August 2011

The words of Prem Tinsulanonda, president of the Thai king's Privy Council, back in 2006 are revealing. Reacting to the recommendation for these provinces to be allowed to use Pattani Malay as their working language, he said: "We cannot accept that [proposal] as we are Thai. The country is Thai and the language is Thai ... We have to be proud to be Thai and have the Thai language as the sole national language."

[*] From article below. My emphasis.

The use of one language in a nation is standard practice. While the US has a lot of Spanish spoken, especially in Florida and California, the country has resolutely stood against having any language other than English as the national language. And the US fought a Civil war over secession (awa slavery, of course). So what's so off about the Thai's doing the same?
This piece below is full of the invective that one hears heaped on anyone who questions immigration or criticises Islam -- use of words such as "Islamophobic", "toxic" and "festering", instead of addressing and discussing the issues. Ad hominem seems to be the basic currency of the left, when discussing these issues.
Concern about the Islamic element of immigration is not confined to the so-called "far right", a term of abuse that is tossed out reflexively, in order to seek to put such views outside of civilised discourse.
Some of the Lefties, or definitely not Righties, who have well-grounded, and well-researched concerns about Islam include Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Bill Maher, and Muslims and ex-Muslims such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Rooshanie Ejaz, Maryam Namazie, Nonie Darwish, and many many others.
Why can't the left simply accept the simple proposition: that there are problematic elements to Islam. The Irish PM recently excoriated Catholicism and the Pope. Yet noone called him a "Cathophobe, or Pope-ophobe". Yet simply mention Islam and critique in the same sentence, and you're labelled "far right", an "Islamophobe"....

Wednesday, 10 August 2011

Below is Tom Holland's piece in Monitor, South China Morning Post, 27th July 2011. He's always sound, and interesting, I think.
It's a bit of a counter to Martin Wolfe's "How China could yet fail like Japan", Financial Times of June 14.

China's investments are not as wasteful as the bears believeTom Holland
For years now economists, investors and newspaper columnists have been arguing bitterly whether China is on a sustainable growth trajectory or whether it is destined for an almighty crash.
Both sides can marshal some convincing-sounding arguments in favour of their views. But at its core the debate hinges on whether the heavy investment which has powered China's growth over the last few years will prove productive over the longer term.

Sunday, 7 August 2011

[Belated] Update BlazingCatFur links to this post and previous. Tx BCF!
Yesterday I wrote about Guardian columnist Seamus Milne's selective quotation from the 2008 Europol Report figures on terrorism activities in Europe. He tried (rather lazily, without actually reading the Report, relying instead on third-party reports) to show that Right-wing terrorism activities are greater than Islamist ones. In fact, Islamist ones are greater by far than Right-wing activities, and Left-wing terrorist activities are also much greater than Right-wing ones. I know it's not terribly edifying to discuss which bunch of nutters kill more people, but really... it was Seamus wot started it, by selectively quoting to "prove" a point, that was the opposite of the truth.
In the post below, I cover his article as a whole (note: not all the links in the original article are highlighted, but they're still there, if you mouse over. Something to do with cut/paste in Blogger...). My comments are dark red Arial, smaller font:

Milne’s link to the Europol figures is via a secondary source: an article in Al-Jazeera by Robert Lambert. Now, I confess to watching Al-Jazeera TV when I’m at the gym. And they’re not at all all bad. Their coverage of the Arab uprisings was rather more thorough than that of international news cable channels.

But Al Jazeera can hardly be considered to be a staunchly objective and disinterested observer on this issue can they?

The Europol figures quoted by Al Jazeera, and thence by Milne, are from the 2008 Report. Why is this? Two clicks on Google, and I find that there’s a 2011 Report. Why not reference the latest Report? Perhaps because it’s far more critical of Islamist terrorism (see below).

In context, it appears that Milne has not read even the 2008 Report (he’s a busy young man, no doubt), and that he’s taken the easy road by quoting Al Jazeera instead. But to my mind, that’s sloppy and lazy.

According to Europol, in 2006, one out of 498 documented terrorist attacks across Europe could be classed as "Islamist"; in 2007, the figure rose to just four out of 583 - less than one per cent of the total. By contrast, 517 attacks across the continent were claimed by - or attributed to - nationalist or separatist terrorist groups, such as ETA in Spain.

I checked the 2008 report and indeed it’s true. There were just four documented terrorist attacks in 2007, which were Islamist. But almost all the rest – as the article itself notes – were Nationalist-Separatist, almost all by ETA and Corsican-related groups.

Clearly the separatist incidents swamp the overall figures. Their actions are specific to land claims. They do not form an existential threat to the body politic as do the Islamist, Left and Right-wing movements.

(i)attacks on property, with a clearly defined land-based aims (ETA) and

(ii)attacks aimed at innocent civilians in the pursuit of a global caliphate, or the imposition of Islamic law in the west (Islamist).

It would be rather more relevant, therefore, to look at the figures “ex-Separatist”, to compare more directly the Islamist, Left-wing and Right-wing attacks, movements which share a commonality: they are a form of non-Christian Millenarianism, but on shorter timescale than 1,000 years. (Centenarians? Decadarians? Shariatomorrowarian?).

Moreover, the ex-separatist analysis is germane given that Milne and Al Jazeera concerns are to seek to prove Right-wing terrorist actions to be a greater threat than Islamist (Left-wing attacks are not mentioned by either).

Taking these together, the figures for Islamist and Left-wing attacks and arrests dwarf those for Right-wing.

Yet neither Milne nor Lambert mentions the Left-wing attacks, nor the fact that taken in toto, the figures implicate Islamist somewhat more than the Left and far more than the Right.

And what about the 2011 Report?

“The threat of attacks by Islamist terrorists in the EU remains high and diverse” (2011; “Key Judgements”. Emphasis in the original)

“Individuals with terrorist aims could easily enter Europe amongst the large number of immigrants. “[ibid, p6]. But of course any concern about immigration would be "bigoted" and "xenophobic" to the likes of Milne.

“Although most of these [threat] statements are not direct indicators of future attacks, they may serve as a motivating factor for home-grown terrorists or diaspora groups to engage in terrorist activities”. [p10]

While the Islamist attacks in 2010 caused minimal damage to intended targets, “… at least two of these attacks could have caused mass casualties and multiple fatalities”. [my emphasis]. That they did not do so was only our dumb luck: the would-be mass murderers had a “… lack of familiarity with explosives”. [ibid p15]

The summary of these is below, using all the figures from Europol that are compatible and can be compared across years:

ISLAMIST

LEFT WING

RIGHT WING

2008

FFC*

4

21

1

ARRESTS

201

48

44

2009

FFC

0

28

0

ARRESTS

187

68

0

2010

FFC

1

40

4

ARRESTS

110

29

22

2011

FFC

3

45

0

ARRESTS

179

34

1

TOTAL

685

313

72

%

64%

29%

7%

*FFC = "failed, foiled, completed attacks".

In other words, of terrorist attacks, or arrests of those in committed by quasi-Millenarian movements, Islamist were the majority and Islamist and Left-wing accounted for 93% of the total.

Given the numbers of killed by all of these movements, including in bad years such as 7/7 in 2005 for the UK and 2004 in Spain, it is not the killing, shocking as it is, that is an existential threat. Citizens of the EU are more likely to be killed by a bee than by a terrorist bomb, whether Islamist, Left or Right-wing, including the murderous nutter Breivik.

The bigger threat is from movements that seek to destabilise societies to install revolutionary governments on their own visions. Of these, most coherent, aggressive and yet the bleakest is the Islamist one. A careful reading --- indeed even a cursory reading -- of the core Islamic primary texts puts this judgement beyond dispute, whatever the bleatings of Milne and his ilk.

There are manifold avenues that they pursue their aims in the west apart from violence: Sharia courts in the UK, pressure on courts in Germany to mitigate spousal violence as being part of religious-cultural freedom; nearly 1,000 areas in France which are considered “off limits” to local law enforcement, and run by local Muslim councils, use of public schools as mosques in Toronto (when they don't allow the Lord's prayer), and so on. The list is virtually endless. It is these that are existential, clearly focussed, explicitly espoused threats to the west.

For the likes of Milne to smear these concerns as “racism” is not just slander. It’s also dangerous as it tries to shut down any discussion of them and what it is that’s raising the concerns: vibrant, pressing Islam.

"In his rage against critics of Islam, Seamus Milne kills freedom of speech"....

Europol is the European Police Office. The figures on terrorism are drawn from European police forces and Interpol. “… it can generally be stated that the data contributed by the Member States for 2010 was of high quality” [2011, p 40]

"...it is the duty of those who have accepted Islam to strive unceasingly to convert or subjugate those who have not. This obligation is without limit of time or space. It must continue until the whole world has either accepted the Islamic faith or submitted to the power of the Islamic state."

-- Bernard Lewis, renowned historian of Islam and the Middle East, in The Political Language of Islam, p72-3.

In other words:

"Islam is unique among religions of the world in having a developed doctrine, theology and legal system that mandates warfare against unbelievers."